Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI)- India’s First National Business Chamber for Women is all set to build and provide policy inputs to the stakeholders including the government for enhancing life skills for women across all levels, profiles and sectors.
On the occasion of India’s 74th Independence Day today, the WICCI- National Life Skills Council set in motion its vision and mission with policy creation as one of its top priorities.
“Evolving times usher evolving methodologies and solutions, and thus we need to create novel ways of enhancing life skills with a view to robustly encourage and empower women in business, industry and commerce across all sectors and fields. The Council shall build well researched and legit policies in the area, and suggest the acceptance and implementation of the same to the Government of India, for woman empowerment and a better-conditioned society,” said Dr. Kuilieit Uppaal, WICCI National President – Life Skills while releasing the Vision and Mission of the Council today.
Highlighting the Vision, she said, “We need to create a powerful and enriching eco-system of life skills for the nation that builds the psychosocial, interpersonal and affective capacity of an individual in multiple areas to develop coping mechanisms and self-management skills that can effectively combat challenges, and help individuals evolve towards self- empowerment and success as professionals in business, industry and commerce across all sectors and fields.”
Life skills are the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life to address a balance of three areas- knowledge, attitude and skills. The skills of knowing and living with oneself, with others, as well as the ability to explore, rationalise and establish effective behavioural iterations for oneself is imperative for evolution and productivity.
The WICCI National Council for Life Skills endeavours to operate and create well-defined policies, systems and processes, as well as engage with the population, in conjunction with the globally recognised concepts of Life Skills and their pertinence and applicability for Indian culture and progressive thought in the current dynamism.
Awareness of the concept of Life Skills, Research & Development, Skill Interventions and Knowledge Dissemination, Opportunities for Enhancement of Life Skills across Domains, Community Network, Exchange Programs, and Policy Creation are integral components of WICCI’s Life Skill Mission.
Dr. Uppaal said that the Council would work on mission mode now. UNICEF, UNESCO and WHO have listed ten core life skills that include problem-solving, critical thinking, effective communication skills, decision-making, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness building skills, empathy, and coping with stress and emotions. “The Council will work towards creating the awareness and relevance of the skills among professionals and aspiring professionals across sectors,” she added.
The Council also plans to engage with business units, entrepreneurship institutions, start-up incubators, corporate houses, higher education establishments and other groups across domains to familiarise and disseminate life skills training through specially devised Life Skill Centres and Circles of Excellence to work toward balancing knowledge, skills and attitude. Moreover, the Council will explore opportunities to engage with groups and organisations that need assistance for knowledge sharing.
The Council firmly believes that knowledge grows multi-fold when the expanse of knowledge givers is unlimited and vibrant. Hence, the Council shall work towards the creation of a network of experts and practitioners in the area of life skills and related domains.
“Community engagement is critical for successful implementation of life skill programmes. We shall create ways to engage with the community at various levels in person or digitally. We also plan to aid direct learning and facilitation and thus effectively engage with the population as ‘friends of hope and resolve’, where there is scope for the community to openly share their feelings, feel a sense of belonging and mutually strengthen each other within the group,” Dr. Uppaal elaborated.
Along with Policy Creation, the Council would focus on encouraging and facilitating knowledge sharing within the states of India, at the national level and a global level with all possible means and modes. The main objective would be to equip the knowledge base for a better-prepared society.
